The present invention relates generally to seats for mass transit vehicles such as buses or subway cars, and more particularly to seats of this type having resilient mountings between the seat frame and a base on which the seat frame is mounted.
Typically, a seat of the type in question is mounted on a base which is fixed to the floor or wall or both of a mass transit vehicle, such as a bus. The seat cushions themselves are mounted on a seat frame, separate and discrete from the base, and a resilient or energy absorbing mounting connects the seat frame to the base. Vehicle seats are subject to external forces resulting from bouncing over rough roadways, sudden stops and starts by the vehicle, sharp turns by the vehicle and the like, and the resilient mounting between the base and the seat frame should be able to accommodate all of these forces.
Among prior art attempts to resolve this problem is Klapproth et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,235 which discloses a base frame, a seat frame, separate and discrete from and located above the base frame, and four resilient mounting blocks constituting the sole connection between the base frame and the seat frame. Each mounting block utilizes a relatively complicated arrangement involving a pair of vertically disposed rubber blocks, one nested within the other, and held together by a compression member.